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United States Patent | 5,667,522 |
Flomenblit ,   et al. | September 16, 1997 |
A stent adapted for placing in the urethra so as to retain the urethra's diameter above a critical level is provided. The stent comprises: a spiral band made of a two-way shape memory alloy having two memory states consisting of a first state in which said alloy is soft and substantially deformable and a second state in which the alloy has super elastic properties and is substantially non-deformable, the alloy changes from the fast state to the second state at a first transition temperature being above physiological body temperature and changes from the second to the first state at a second transition temperature being below physiological body temperature; in the second state consecutive windings of the band are adjacent one another so that they form together essentially a continuous cylindrical tube of a diameter above said critical level; in the first state the band forms a coiled structure having a maximal external diameter such so as to allow deployment of stent within the urethra.
Inventors: | Flomenblit; Josef (Holon, IL); Budigina; Nathaly (Holon, IL) |
Assignee: | Medinol Ltd. (Tel Aviv, IL) |
Appl. No.: | 397674 |
Filed: | March 2, 1995 |
Mar 03, 1994[IL] | 108832 |
Current U.S. Class: | 606/198; 606/191 |
Intern'l Class: | A61M 029/00 |
Field of Search: | 606/198,191,194,195,108,192 604/96 |
4503569 | Mar., 1985 | Dotter. | |
4762128 | Aug., 1988 | Rosenbluth | 606/192. |
4795458 | Jan., 1989 | Regan et al. | |
4969890 | Nov., 1990 | Sugita et al. | 606/194. |
5037427 | Aug., 1991 | Harada et al. | |
5147370 | Sep., 1992 | McNamara et al. | |
Foreign Patent Documents | |||
2512678 | Sep., 1982 | FR. | |
2617721 | Jul., 1988 | FR. | |
WO93/13824 | Jul., 1993 | WO. |